pawleys cup 2009

just back from south carolina where I played 72 very sloppy wet holes of golf with friends in the annual pawleys cup. I played from the very back tees and the course played extremely long, I'd say over 7300 yards. the ball plugged on every shot and we played lift clean and place. It is hard to drive too far off line when the ball doesn't roll and I drove well all week. it seemed like I was constantly talking my fairway woods out to play my second shots and with the small green at DeBordieu I missed lots of greens. My chipping and pitching around the greens were really poor and I was afraid of not contacting the ball first and solidly on these short shots and so had poor touch even when I did so. It was not as if I missed all of these shots and never got it up and down but I was anxious because I did chunk and thin a few of these shots. my iron play was poor as well with lots of pulls.

here is the reason that I pulled and mis-hit so many iron shots in the simplest terms; there is too much backswing where I become out of position / disconnected and not enough rotation through. or in slang, I can not "go" because I have to wait to reconnect.

the last nine holes I felt something which felt very "right". I was playing a shot over water into a small green and there was a one club wind in my face. over the green is no good and I was already 2 down so taking more club was not a good option. I thought to myself, " if I just make a good shoulder turn behind the ball I will have enough leverage or " power" built up on my backswing where I will be able to change directions smoothly and therefore play a solid/strong iron shot which will not be "eaten up" by the wine. the backswing felt coiled and slow and shorter than usual.....the front swing happened without initiation and the divot was thin and in front of the ball and the shot was beautiful I played 3 or 4 amazingly solid and straight shots coming in trying to slowly turn back....very long drives and a 3-wood at number 6 I will remember for a long time. the shots which also stick out were two wedge shots...a 100 yard shot on number 6 where I hit it stiff and a 45 yard wedge shot to #7. I had been really struggling with these and turning back with my body rather than swinging away with my hands gave the shot a totally different feel to it. these shots were played without my hands in a sense. I would like to explore this more. because my commitment to be ready to play the second shot on the first hole at the BFCC in May is on my mind after this horrible anxiety at the Pawleys Cup.

November 2009

Just recently back from Charleston where I played in the Yeamans Hall Senior on what has become one of my favorite courses. Three rounds on this Seth Raynor classic with no cut is a fine way to go. Traveling there I was saying to myself that I have played so few events this season I wanted to try and be easy on myself and not expect too much in terms of performance. This sounded like a good plan but once I teed off and made a few pars I desperately wanted to play well, especially with all my gloving contemporaries playing there too.

I wasn’t very comfortable and made some poor shots and many bad decisions. In the first round I turned in 41 with two doubles and felt discouraged. I was thinking to myself, “ do I like doing this?” I said to myself as I went to the tenth tee I was going to make no more bogies and played 10 through 15 very well with all pars and lots of birdie putts. I made bogies from the fringe at 16 & 17 and at 18 I layed up to my wedge yardage and slightly pulled my 95 yard shot into the edge of the bunker pin high. When I couldn’t find the ball I knew it was buried and I made a good putt for my 6 after finding the ball and barely getting out into the high rough surrounding the bunker. I felt sick to my stomach as I signed my card especially when I saw the low scores on the scoreboard…. I had shot 79.

I went straight to the range and played lots of 95 yard shots just like the one I had just had at 18. This is a part of my game, 30-90 yard shots where I am not nearly as accurate as I’d like to be. I was able to find a rhythm and played lots of fine shots on the range.

In the second round I played better and did not make any doubles, but still wasted lots of shots and had a number of 3-putts for 75 which is 5 over par. I was 14 over after two round and the leader was close to par, maybe 1 or 2 over.

The last round I shot 73 and felt a bit more comfortable out there. But on the first hole added to pin sheet info to the front rather than the middle of the green yardage….so I had 162 instead of 132. I was able to smile at this idiocy.

Driving home I was thinking about what is ahead as I always do. I want to be better and to enjoy myself more.

I sent Billy Harmon an e-mail asking if I could phone him to talk. I did so and spent 45 minutes on the phone. It was so great to be able to talk with someone I respect, someone who has spent his life in and around the game. He was full of insight. Here’s a bit of what he said.

Playing well is not as much about good swings as it is about belief in your ability to play.

Your attitude and the way you think about your game is everything.

Managing your thoughts is difficult but crucial to giving yourself a chance to perform.

He suggested that after each shot I consider this; was it my swing that failed or was it my interference from my mind, which dominated the time playing the shot. If you are trying to not go out of bounds, if that is what you are thinking then you really have not given yourself a chance to play a good golf shot.

Being afraid is very different from being nervous.

He told me a great story about his friend Frank Beard, who said; every golfer approaches a round and many shots within the round with a 40 lb bag of self doubt, lack of confidence, nerves, etc. = a 40 lb. bag of “shit!” Frank said, “ the reason I was successful is that I found a way to put that bag off to the side and give myself the 25-45 seconds I needed to play my shot.”

After my phone conversation I went to the golf course with a short putter ( I have been putting with a long putter for 18 months ) and shot a 6 under 66 making putts from everywhere. Yesterday I played in my normal Sunday game where there is much more pressure and I was determined to take the short putter and give it a try. I made a 3 footer on one and two and a 20 footer on 3 and putted pretty well. I did have 2 three putts. I had 72 on the difficult Duke course

When my golf swing is forced and I attempt to control it usually doesn't feel right or work well. I have been struggling for weeks with so many different swing thoughts I am embarrassed to list them all and I haven't written about what I have been up to because I really have been confused and down about it. How could it all have seemed so easy and clear in July to have turned so much the opposite just a few months later?

During my round this week I had tried everything and was losing my balance and not contacting the ball very solidly and towards the end of the round I tried a swing thought I used 3 or 4 years ago. On the first shot the ball "leaped" off the club face because it was contacted solidly. I am sure the reason it felt so good was because I had been swinging so poorly.

I tried to practice yesterday but never made it and just came from the range where I played shot after shot with almost no effort and very solid contact. So will I again be like the hampster in the cage spinning round and round again searching for my swing? I assume I will unless I can find a teacher and a way to practice the same swing motion again and again until it becomes mine!

Here's the swing thought and some of the sensations I felt;

I begin with a closed stance and my arms hanging down but with my shoulder square to slightly open....the backswing has my left knee moving out towards the ball which allows my hips to turn and the club to ( without any effort or manipulation ) to swing inside. If I bend from the waist then with less backswing I feel "loaded" or feel as if I have created enough leverage on the backswing to make a smooth transition. This backswing feels slower and shorter as the knee bends out towards the ball rather than back towards my right knee.

The front swing feels simple and as if the left knee straightens and I stay on a solid left shoe. It is great to contact the ball first and to stay balanced into my finish.

What is easiest for me is to play a draw as the club down-cocks and re-routes to the inside....I then release through which produces a slight draw or if I move too far laterally I miss right. Playing a fade requires more rotation and requires more effort ( fitness ) but there is less "flip" through impact and when I make this swing the shot are of a higher trajectory and the shot quality if slightly better.

There was also a one / two cadence to this swing today which produced a rewarding sameness and shot pattern.

swinging instead of thinking

I spent labor day weekend in austin texas with peter playing golf. we played twice at the austin c.c. a pete dye course which has been a challenge for me since I first played there almost twenty years ago. I haven't played regularly these last 4 weeks and I was not able to find much consistency out there and therefore was trying to figure out my swing...you know lots of different swing thoughts which is never fun. after rounds of 76 and 75 on friday and saturday sunday was to be a practice day. of course I mused saturday night and sunday morning about my practice range strategy, or how to find my swing on the range where I could experiment. I had felt and experienced what I believed to be my biggest flaw during my rounds on friday and saturday; not starting the club back first with a rhythmic swinging motion. I often fall into the bad habit of "jumping back" to my right foot moving my right knee ahead of the club swinging off the ball. this makes it difficult to rotate around on my front swing and other issues I will not bring up here other than the liability of moving the bottom of the swing arc back behind the ball. anyway my session was going o.k. with lots of shots played with most of my weight on my left foot so the club starts back first and this set up levels my shoulders in a good way.

as the texas sun rose overhead and the salty sweat was stinging my eyes I thought to myself, " this is such a hard game!" I thought about the approach of constantly thinking about the future and a time when my swing will be solid and settled and then followed that thought with a snickering rebuke of this starry eyed dreaming which has been going on for too many years.

I wasn't having fun and decided to play a few shots where I didn't think at all but simply put my attention in my body and allowed the club to swing. the 8 iron I had in my hands and had been using to hit shots at a target on the left side of the range immediately began flying 5-8 yards farther and the sound was better. I was contacting the ball first and slightly more solid. this encouraged me to think even less and let go into my swinging motion with an awareness in my feet as my weight moved back to my right shoe and then forward to my left. my grip pressure was light and I could feel my arms folding and staying close to my body as I played shot after shot without thinking. I was feeling my swing and observing the sensation which is way different from directing my shoulders etc. how to move in order to swing.

I left the range recalling the three days in wrightsville beach when I had a similar feeling playing in the n.c. 4-ball with bill bolles and the practice session in montreal with fred shoemaker. both of these times had a similar feeling of an effortless swing

attention is a big factor and variable in my golfing performance and the experience I have out there on the course. in a state championship event last summer I was in the midst of a meltdown. I had driven OB and then was playing my third shot with my second drive when it dawned on me that my position was so dead left of the green, that I could make an 8 or 9 on the hole if I did not watch out. so I visualized a 5 iron run shot through the trees to bounce into a bank and land on the green. It was a one in 50 shot but it caused me to focus and see the shot and another important thing happened; I knew immediately that I could not think how to swing to play this shot. I simply had to see the shot and focus on exactly where the ball had to travel for the shot to end up on the green. so I gave up on my approach of concocting a swing in my mind to translate to my body to pull off. the reason I remember this so well is because the shot came off exactly as I had seen it as it needed to, to escape from trouble. so why on the very next hole did I again revert to thinking how to swing? that's the mystery I'd like to explore today.

there are many times I recall someone saying, " I hit my best shots out of trouble, from the woods where I have to play between trees." I believe the reason for this is clear, when you are in trouble you must focus on what the ball must do to escape and get back to the fairway or onto the green. The trajectory and path are critical to the shot being played successfully. from the middle of the fairway there's the tendency to "fall asleep" in terms of your target and the ball path to get there. you get into your head and think about how you want to swing. being "in your head" if often harmful to performance and tends to diminish your athletic abilities. some of the worst shots of my life, when I reflect back just after I have played the shot, have occurred when I have totally lost track of my target and have been cocooned in my mind thinking how to swing. being in love with perfection and listening intently to the voice in my head giving me instructions for the shot is something I often fall prey to.

this week I saw a short blurb in the nytimes golf page entitled, you mind the ball, the body will follow http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/sports/golf/24golftip.html. jerry mowlds says well what I have just tried to explain here.

as I continue my journey with golf, I know so much more about my hopes and intentions for my time out there on the green landscape. to be aware of my target and exactly where I hope the ball will go is up there at the top of my list. and to then be "in my body" instead of trapped in my mind thinking how to swing follows closely behind.

last week

coming to the mountains I was feeling excited about working on my game. I should note that working is a term deserving some scrutiny. I have had a really good stretch of golf where I was able to shoot some scores in the 60s and capped off my good play with a 63 at Finley on July 18. I birdied the last 6 holes for 29 to pair with a 34 on the front. I was “on” in a way that was so much fun because I was simply seeing the shot and trusting myself to play the shot I visualized. And hey I was making putt after putt many of them from 12-15 feet. At the last I had 135 to a tight pin and my shot hit the flag and dropped down very close.

I seem to always fall into a similar trap.....wanting to reinforce or practice to make my game more reliable and I was using my experience with this very low round as a model. but it seems I always experiment and tweek this and that and is what happened here this week and before I knew it I was totally lost. my swing felt just terrible with no rhythm or tempo. I fell to a level of desperation, which I can hardly ever remember sinking to before. I had the awful "yips" with short shots and often ended up out of breath and off balance at the end of my swing. I tried everything but couldn't stick with anything and didn't know what to do.

my scores were the worst I have ever recorded here in the mountains and on the short course I could never make a birdie....all this just a few weeks after making 9 birdies in one round on a much more challenging course. My last wedge shot at 18 yesterday, was a shot that felt different and sooo much better. my hands felt "quiet" and the club's back and through swing felt controlled by my pivot and shoulder turn. So I headed off this a.m. by myself at 7 a.m. to try and recreate this feeling with all my clubs. I played 18 holes and was by the end really on. The club was swinging again I was on balance and I was contacting the ball solidly. but most amazing were all the short shots around the green which I would practice on every hole. I played shot after shot which had the correct trajectory and I was able to contact the ball first. I was so relaxed and my grip pressure felt soft and constant. I had this feeling that I was pre-cocked at address with my hands low and the right hand pad pressure pushing down on my left thumb and molding my hands together as one. this "locked-in" feeling with my hands allows me a smooth swinging tempo where my shoulders and body control the club. my arms stay close to my body and the swing is a smaller swing w/o my arms ever "running away" from my body on the backswing. There is no hit, no jump, no losing my spine angle when my body stops and I straighten up. just like a switch went off and I could play any shot I wanted to and holed out twice and left many others at tap-in range.

the bunker shots I played were even better and I holed one of these out and only played 3 shots. again there was no stop and flip but an acceleration and the great "thump" sound when your technique is correct. again the club seemed to go up quicker and was pre-cocked so all I had to do was turn my shoulders and stay within my foundation.

the image of tom watson came quickly to mind as I felt like he looks and I even assumed his attitude of being unattached to where my ball went and I would simply swing and let go. my divots were shallow and on most every shot my hands felt passive and as if their job was simply to keep the grip pressure secure and steady.I was amazed by how much less effort I was using and I played a few shots where there was a heavy hit sound created by the speed possible from the centrifugal force you achieve when you are in the position and on balance to simply let go. I thought back to all the awful swings I have made this last week where I was trying so hard, finishing off balance and tense.

my posture was athletic and bent from the waist and my arms were loose and "drappy" feeling. I am sure my back swing pace was slower but when I had tried over and over to do this earlier this week I would always speed up and jump into the ball. today I felt the transition as balanced and effortless.

when I have made this swing before there is the sense that the heel of the sole contacts the ground with the toe in the air.....I am unsure if that is in fact what happens but the divots were square and you could see the toe was not racing to square the face by the depth and shape of the divots.

tiger's latest win

when I saw tiger finish his round on thursday and then read his comments in the friday sports page about his round I briefly considered and thought maybe he will finally, just this once come back to the rest of the golfing ranks. maybe he will like all others around him succumb to the pressures of being the best and let down his guard enough to shoot a normal score of friday and miss his second cut in a row. he is off and called his thursday putting performance the worst he can ever remember. if tiger had shot 70 on friday and missed the cut it would have set off a storm of commentary because this would have been new, something he had never done before.....play like a normal professional golfer and in the midst of being slightly off get a bit worse until you "right the ship" and move ahead.

so with interest on friday morning, I called a friend who follows golf to inquire how tiger was playing and he told me he was 7 under through the first seven holes. no he was not going to fall back to normalcy even this once. he would go on to shoot 63 on friday and take home the trophy on sunday. this determined relentless golfing genius once again found a way to find his game....at least enough to beat the group of no name golfers who were at the top of the leader board at the buick open.

chipping pitching #2

practicing these last few days have been interesting and I am learning about these short shots. I have realized I have less understanding when I miss than I do with long shots. part of this is my awareness which is hampered by being up in my head thinking rather than present in my body as I play the shot.yesterday I believe I was standing too close to the ball to allow the club to swing. all great pitchers seem to swing the club and do not appear to have a "hit" at the bottom of the stroke where the club contacts the ball. standing to close to the ball does not allow the club to swing inside the line on the back swing ( think jim furyk's motion )

I also can feel my body sway slightly on the way back, my head turning under which moves the bottom of my swing arc slightly behind the ball making it necessary to adjust on the front swing.

lastly, jay haas helped in a phone conversation where he helped me see that I am a really good bunker player where I use a weaker grip and open the club more on the backswing....this allows me to accelerate and because the club is so open even with acceleration which creates spin, the ball will not fly too far. this same approach is helpful on short shots where I have had too much backswing and too much " power" built up so I can not accelerate through. a weaker right hand grip also makes my hands less active which increases consistency. opening the clubface at address also takes advantage of the bounce on the wedge.

the long putter

in case you haven't noticed a man using a long putter is leading the champions tour money list by almost double the dollars.  and 5 of the top 20 in the British Senior Open used the long putter. but at the local golf shop where I went today, well stocked with merchandise there were no long putters for sale, in my local group which includes a few dozen golfer no one uses a long putter, and I still have yet to see a "how to" article in one of the golf magazines about using a long putter.

 A childhood friend who has played lots of Senior Golf told me two years ago when I was just getting started, " I have one piece of advice for you as you enter Senior Golf....if your putter length doesn't begin with a 4 you have no chance."

I am 56 and have been using a long putter for 14 months. I had little choice in going that way, and have found some success of late using a 48 inch putter. I have no qualms about the way it looks sticking so far out of my bag or pulling it out on the first hole with a group of strangers. because it has enabled me to putt without as much fear and allowed me to get more putts to the hole...... something I was unable to do with my short putter.

chipping & pitching

chipping and pitching.....I have made the commitment to myself to develop a routine and learn to play these shots around the green with more confidence and skill by next memorial day. there's an event called the Jess Sweetser at the Biltmore Forest Club in Asheville where you really need these shots to be able to play and compete. I thought it would be helpful to review my journey and include some of the journal entries I have recorded over the years. 

the fundamentals for playing this shot are fairly simple and if you watch someone who plays these shots well it looks so easy...but if you have flaws in your chipping stroke which makes it hard to contact the ball solidly with a sameness of trajectory then these simple shots become a problem

if your fundamentals are good then all you are doing is feeling the shot in terms of how far the ball will fly and how far it will run out determined by the trajectory.....but if you are worried about contact then you are thinking how to move and swing and most of your touch and feel goes out the window.

there are also two fundamental aspects of these shorts shots which are counterintuitive

1. the club must be descending or swinging down when it contacts the ball for the ball to fly up and reach it's proper height

2. this downward swing can not include a "hitting" motion with your hands. well it can but as you lose the feel and touch in your hands this can be problematic